Page 403 - Arte e Historia
P. 403
Art and History
at the Banco popular dominicano visual arts collection
no date v «Carriage and Ox,» oil/canvas, 60x90 cm., no date flavour of someone influenced by the environmental features, es-
v «Caravel,» oil/canvas, 60x75 cm., no date v «Seascape and pecially for the material offered by it: He has worked splendidly
vessel,» oil/canvas, 60x45 cm., no date v «Carriage and Ox,» the Dominican stones: Samana’s onyx, pink marble, granite,
oil/canvas, 70x118 cm., no date v «Washers,» oil/canvas, 60x75 alabaster; and the woods like Guayacan wood, mahogany and
cm., no date v «San Rafael Beach, Barahona,» oil/canvas, 60x90 teak. His pieces made in stone present a formal strength and an
cm., no date v «Seascape with Sailboat,» oil/canvas, 55x75 cm., expressive sureness only seen in the contemporary sculpture’s real
no date v «Ox, Carriages and Canes,» oil/canvas, 54x88 cm., masters: Brancusi, Moore and Arp. The technic hasn’t have
no date. «Country Little House,» acrylic/canvas, 54x75 cm., no secrets for this young sculptor (…) Prats-Ventós has been present
date v «Seascape,» acrylic/canvas, 75x100 cm., no date. in all the Biennials held in Dominican Republic (…) He is rep-
resented in many public buildings and private residences.»
Prats-Ventós:
SCULPTURES AND PAINTINGS A sculptor of bulk and relief pieces, he stands out
also as orator for the symbolic or referenced abstraction.
With an artistic reputation as professor as well as an A discreet painter as well, with differentiated styles and
sculptor, Antonio Prats-Ventós played a significant role themes. According to María Ugarte (Prats-Ventós 1925-
during the 1966-1970 period. Exhibitor on the rise, he had 1999, page 195), in 1970 he starts the series «Las Damas,
an individual showing at the Universidad Madre y Maestra las Meninas y Los Infantes» (…). Exhibit for the first time
campus’ opening (1966). Other individuals from that peri- «Los Apóstoles» at the Museo Del Hombre Dominicano
od: Universidad de Santiago (1964); in Puerto Rico, at the (…). He build the «altarpiece» Basílica de Nuestra Señora
Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña and the Museo Uni- de la Altagracia en Higüey (…). With «Los Apóstoles,»
versitario de Río Piedras (1968). By that time, the cultural Prats-Ventós takes part at the Expo Nueva Imagen de la
group La Máscara had elected him as the Year’s Sculptor Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra. `
(1966), taking into consideration his personal exhibition
at the Fine Arts Palace, where he showed 81 sculptures. The decades 1970 and 1980, see an outstanding
productive and exhibitions vitality in the master, who
He was a professor at the Universidad Nacional Pe- got the Dominican citizenship by the naturalization
dro Henríquez Ureña’s (UNPHU) Architecture School decree 1109, extended in 1971. That vitality multi-
and at the same time, teaching at the Fine Arts National plies him as a sculptor and a painter, on the basis of
School when, in 1969, when two expressive statues he a sounded drawing skill that give form mainly to his
had created for the Fine Arts Palace front were downed. unmistakable round faces icons, as well as his still lives,
The Palace, opened in 1956, was transformed into the na- and landscapes where he combines a chromatic range
tional collection venue that included his awarded works handcrafted command. On top of that, his technic
from different Biennials; hosting at the same time the mastering of the basic plastic material substrates and
school in which he was a sculptor professor. The shame- extracts, flows with an apparent cold frugality, but lyric
ful event provoked his resignation, producing at once a in the accuracy’s rationality where the Basque, Spanish
sculptural group forged in iron entitled «Angels Proces- or Dominican references join hands.
sion for a Death Statue,» group of 100 abstract pieces
plus one figurative shown at UNPHU in 1969. «Drawing,» charcoal, 13x21 inch., no date. The piece
of graphic strokes, part of the bank collection, seemingly
Darío Suro, in his monograph «Arte Dominicano,» results in an sculpture draft, due to the circular forms of
(1968, p.72), said: «Prats-Ventós created and matured his its plan, on the base as in the curvatures defining thin
work in the Dominican Republic. In Prats-Ventós remains the and edgy resembling an abstract cubical enclosure.
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